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Thursday, 9 January 2014

Review: When God was a Rabbit

When God was a Rabbit/Sarah Winman

Some people start their year with their right foot, and there's me: starting with two left feet. This book was recommended to me back when it was only published, and my God, it had many reviews that praised it and ironically, acted like it was The Bible of philosophy. Now we have Life of Pi to fill that space.

The story follows a little girl who's name I think no one remembers. Heck, I think the author will be interviewed this minute and she won't remember who God is! Or was...

What was I talking about? A plot? Well, forget an interesting plot when you got a 'way of life' how-to-book that costs less than a buck. I think I'll first explain why I hate this type of books and then, actually review what I could read from the book.

I hate it when a book tries to force down your throat the way 'you should live'. It's like the book is either 'be happy and don't give a damn about society and bills' or 'believe in God, because science is false'. Some books, for example The Secret, makes you look at things in another perspective and tells that 'it's your choice to follow The Secret, and only yours'. And actually, The Secret had a bit of a logic to it.

But books like Life of Pi, is just randomness after randomness that no one wanted to hear your opinion about. It just there to get awards and be a major talk in dinner parties, where people with an IQ of one hundred (average) try to make themselves look 'intelligent'. Am I the only one pissed off?!

Now with the book: before I even say anything, let's just all agree that the cover and title make you curious. Well, last time I was curious, I killed by mistake my brain.

The book has -at least in the first twenty pages I've read- no plot, no actual conflict and gravestone characters, that actually acted like they have an after-death depression. The book starts with talking about some random girl who got a coin from under her skin. Or at least that what I understood, because the writing was kind of sloppy and lazy, which made everything hard to understand. The part I least hated was a conversation between the girl and her mother about God. Here's a brief summery:

Now, this scene isn't really that much of a bad scene. In fact,Winman uses one of the most common humor formulas, that's common in slapstick: The Humor Triangle. Basically, you make a funny moment, and repeat it. And repeat it again, but change one element or change the reaction of the characters, and make the audience laugh much more. The problem is: there's no humor in the first two parts. Was it supposed to be something to laugh at?

I don't even think that 'poo' and 'God' should be in the same sentence. You talk in this book about religion but make belief look stupid as hell. And I don't think God would love this book, because it's 'poo'.

Overall, this is not really a book for a fun, Saturday morning read. If you go to dinner parties in a suit or cocktail dress too often to boast about lies of understanding life, this is a book for you.